DESIDOC Journal of Library and Information Technology, Vol. 28, No. 4, July 2008, pp. 55-62 © 2008, DESIDOC
Presence-Centered Assessment of Virtual Museums’ Technologies Styliani Sylaiou, Athanasis Karoulis1, Yiannis Stavropoulos2 and Petros Patias3 Interdepartmental Postgraduate Program in Protection, Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Monuments Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, University Box 473, GR-54124 Thessaloniki, Greece E-mail:
[email protected] Department of Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
1
2
Aerosol and Particle Technology Laboratory of Centre for Research and Technology Hellas/Chemical Process Engineering Research Institute, Thessaloniki, Greece
3
Faculty of Rural & Surveying Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
ABSTRACT The sense of Presence is a crucial issue in virtual environments and can provide effectiveness and user engagement. A research undertaken in virtual museum websites investigated the level of Presence, the sense of being in the virtual environment and their interconnections with the various technologies they use for presenting their cultural exhibits. The main aim of the study was to explore the differences in Presence experience according to the IT tools they use. Keywords: Virtual reality, virtual museums, virtual environments, virtual exhibitions, augmented reality.
1. INTRODUCTION Virtual environments (VE) are applied in many scientific areas such as medicine, entertainment, transport, culture, etc. More and more are being adopted by cultural institutions such as museums to help them meet their scopes. Virtual exhibitions allow museums to easily exhibit vast collections of objects and overcome limitations of objects’ fragility, exhibition space and cost. A research 1 , 2 and an extensive survey of the European museum sector 3 have shown that technologies such as the World Wide Web (www) enhanced by 3-D visualisation tools, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and Web3D systems in conjunction with database technology may facilitate the preservation, dissemination and presentation of cultural artifacts in museums’ collections. Such technologies could also educate the wide public in an innovative and interactive DESIDOC Jl. Lib. Inf. Technol., 2008, 28(4)
manner. The virtual museums provide opportunity to people that live far away from the “brick and mortar” museums and do not have the possibility to travel and to people with disabilities to visit their exhibitions and have an interactive, engaging, educative and at the same time a fun and satisfying museum experience. While immersed in virtual environment (VE) simulations, users can receive a number of distinct multi-sensory stimuli (i.e. visual, auditory, haptic) which are intended to provide a sensation of ‘natural’ interaction with the virtual world and, consequently, an illusion of being ‘present’ in a VE 4 . VE that engender a high degree of presence are thought to be more enjoyable and effective for training 5 . I n a virtual museum environment, the cultural content should be engaging and legible so as to be correctly interpreted and to stimulate thought, trigger enjoyment, inspiration and creativity, and reflect human curiosity 55
and emotions. The study presented in this article explored users’ level of ‘p resence’ o r ‘sense of being there ’, in the virtual museum environment according to the technologies used by virtual museum websites.
based navigation 14 . In this case, the visitor from a certain virtual point can rotate and pan, as well as zoom in/out the panorama.
2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND PROBLEM STATEMENT
A simple webpage can use image formats that permit scalability and provide to the user the opportunity to examine the museum artifacts in detail. Photographs can be organised in a sequence reminding of a virtual tour through the museum.
2.1 Presence in Virtual Environments The goal of a VE is the ability to mislead one’s senses so well that the illusion of being somewhere other than one’s physical location is created. The sense of presence is the design aim of a VE. A VE such as a virtual museum is an artificial world, created by computers, which can give the observer a sense of ‘being there’ (presence), in virtual environment. ‘Presence’ generally, refers to the subjective perception of being immersed and present in time or space in a particular location 6 , the sense of “being there” in a mediated environment 7, the ‘perceptual illusion of non-mediation’8, “the observer’s subjective sensation of ‘being there’ in a remote environment”9. Presence is “the extent to which the VE becomes the dominant one, i.e. that participants will tend to respond to events in the VE rather than in the real world, the extent to which participants, after the VE experience, remember it as having visited a place rather than just having seen images generated by a computer…they had an experience of being in a place, just like any other place they had been earlier in the day 10 . ” Presence has been identified as the subjective perception of being immersed in and surrounded by a virtual world rather than the physical world one is currently situated in 7. This impression can be created via a host of technologies starting from traditional desktop PCs and ending to a more sophisticated and more immersive displays such as CAVE 11 . Assessment of presence has primarily focused on measuring the effects of VE technologies on a person’s sense of presence12 via questionnaires 10,13. This study examined if the users’ level of ‘ presence’ or ‘sense of being there ’ in virtual museum web pages is affected by the various technologies used.
2.2 Categories of Virtual Museums used for the Study 2.2.1 Webpage with Panoramic Images Panoramic images based on the QuickTime VR (QTVR) technology, allow users to get the feeling of a real museum visitor in a 3-D space. The most popular museums on the www offer a Quicktime56
2.2.2 Webpage with Scalable Images
2.2.3 Webpage with a Searchable Database This is the case of a 2-D presentation of image collection with a small preview with a hyperlink to a higher resolution image. It is typically represented by web collections of 2-D exhibits like paintings or a set of photographs of 3-D objects. Such collections are often called virtual galleries. This does not correspond to the term virtual reality, but highlights the difference between real and digital world. Virtual galleries made from images are the most frequently used technique for the museum presentations on the www.
2.2.4 Webpage with Web3D Environment This kind of webpage permits free and interactive real-time navigation in 3-D space. It permits the exploration of virtual rooms/galleries and of museum artifacts can also be presented in 3-D with layers of information by the users that can freely walk or fly through the space.
2.2.5 Webpage with Flash Technologies and Videos There are virtual museum web pages that are created completely or partially by Macromedia Flash and may create and deliver dynamic and interactive web content with embedded sound and video.
3. MATERIALS AND METHODS 3.1 Apparatus and Visual Content The experiments took place in an HP workstation with two 2.4 GHz Xeon processors and 2048 MB of memory. Standard display technology, such as PC 19’ monitor has been used.
3.2 Participants A total of 46 volunteers (males and females with ages from 19-37) mainly undergraduate and postgraduate students from the Aristotle University DESIDOC Jl. Lib. Inf. Technol., 2008, 28(4)
of Thessaloniki, Greece, participated in the experiment. Participants in all conditions were naive as to the purpose of the experiment. After they navigated the virtual museums environments and performed the assigned tasks, were subsequently asked to fill in perceived presence questionnaire. All the participants reported to have at least a basic knowledge of computers.
3.3 Experimental Procedure Emphasis was placed in using experimental settings which were as realistic as possible with respect to those in practice. Four steps were undertaken including: goal setting (users start with a plan of the tasks to be accomplished), exploration (users explore the interface and discover useful actions), selection (users select the most appropriate actions for accomplishing their task) and assessment (users interpret the system’s responses and assess its progression). The participants had been informed about the scope of the study and were interviewed in private. The evaluation and the interviews took place in the laboratory of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, with no visitors allowed during the study so that the users could concentrate on the completion of the questionnaire administered. The evaluation involved only one participant at a time and assistants instructed the end-users if they needed help. The evaluation used cued testing, which involves explaining to the users what the program is about and asking them to perform specific tasks or to answer questions. The users were provided with written instructions concerning sets of predetermined tasks which guided them to navigate in the virtual museum exhibitions described bellow. This stage was concerned with the user’s ability to move through the contents of an interactive program in an intentional manner. The virtual museums that correspond to the categories defined in Section 2.2 and were used for the study are:
( i) National Gallery of Art, USA (http://www.nga. gov/): The tasks that the virtual visitors have to perform were to freely navigate and search for the presentation of the painter Van Gogh and extract information about his work with the help of zoomable images, sounds and Quicktime VR files. (ii) Metropolitan Museum of New York (http://www. metmuseum.org/): In this virtual museum that DESIDOC Jl. Lib. Inf. Technol., 2008, 28(4)
is an online catalogue of the real museum, the virtual visitors should navigate the museum collections, to locate exhibits of their interest and take as much information as possible via zoomable images and detailed textual exhibit information. Furthermore, they could pick and choose exhibits they like and create a personal virtual museum gallery. (iii) The Museum of Modern Art (http://www.moma.org/): In this case the participants could also have a free navigation to the various thematical areas of the museum and search by period, artist, or by title museum exhibits. (iv) Van Ghogh Virtual Museum (http://www. vangoghmuseum.nl/ ): The 3-D environment of the museum permits 3-D navigation to a standalone application with keyboard arrows. The users could explore the virtual museum using the various possibilities provided (zoom image, taking info from hot points, “making photos” of the virtual space and exhibits and send them by email). Also, a 2-D tourist map was provided to facilitate the navigation in the 3-D environment, allowing a transition to a virtual museum room or to a specific exhibit. (v) Virtual Silver Screen, Cinema Virtual Museum (http://www.collectionscanada.ca/silver screen/): The participants have to explore the virtual museum that uses Flash technologies and consists of Canadian films of the early 20th century. Additionally, they have to chose and watch a black and white movie and extract information about it by sounds and texts .
4.
INSTRUMENTATION
‘Many interactive systems have a good look but a poor feel’ 15. In order to measure the feel of presence of ARCO system, a Virtual Reality Presence Questionnaire16 was used. It provided users participating in the evaluation a series of questions that provided opportunity to decide from a range of answers on a numeric Likert scale from one to seven. The questionnaire needed five to ten minutes to be completed. The VR Presence questionnaire was modified since it was originally constructed to assess presence in immersive environments. Its first two questions concerned the extend to which the participants used computers in their daily activities and the extent they were familiar with VR, AR and computer games, respectively. The next eight questions assessed the sense of being there and more specifically the 57
degree to which individuals experience presence while interacting with a virtual museum exhibition. The virtual visitors were asked to describe their experience in virtual museums as compared with their experience in traditional museums. Firstly, their sense of being there has been rated on a scale from 1 to 7, where 7 represented the normal experience of being in a physical museum environment. In addition to this, the participants were asked to assess the degree of the virtual museum environment consistency with the real world; whether the virtual museum that they visited seemed as a group of images that they have seen, or more as a gallery that they have visited. After their navigation to the virtual museum website they were asked to evaluate the intuitiveness of the system and the naturalness of control and interaction and the degree to which they felt present in the virtual museum galleries. Finally, the interviewers assessed the degree of their involvement in the virtual museum experimental task to the extent that they lost the track of time. How well they achieved the virtual museum experimental task was also assessed. The last question was asked to assess how well they achieved the experimental task.
(i.e. the total number of PM indices that lie in each bin range) are then divided by the total number of counts (i.e. the total number of questionnaires) and multiplied by 100 to produce the per cent frequency of counts per bin. These graphs provide a picture of the distribution of the ratings among the participants. Furthermore, by adding the frequencies of each subsequent bin a “cumulative frequency histogram” is produced (Fig. 6).
4.1 Data
(iv) Conclusions are drawn based on the frequency of bad scores (< 3) and high scores (> 5).
The data was summarised by calculating the average of each group of questions per questionnaire and museum. In this respect, a “virtual presence” index (denoted PM) was calculated by averaging the results of the respective questions per questionnaire and museum. The resulting PM data are then plotted in the form of a histogram for visual inspection of differences in the data distribution for the five museums. The resulting frequency histograms of the PM index for the five museums are shown in Figs 1-5. In these graphs, the rating scale is divided into 6 bins of size 1. The total counts in each bin
The error bars shown in the Fig. 7 correspond to the standard deviation of each distribution. The elaboration methodology adheres to following four steps: (i)
(ii) It is assumed that this is directly related to the method used by each museum to enhance the virtual tour (i.e. “causation” is assumed). (iii) The PM results for the five museums are compared by direct visual inspection of the respective histograms.
5. RESULT S The above presented histograms revealed the following: Ë
The frequency histogram of the third museum showed that it had the worse score in the rank 2-3 (35 per cent).
Ë
The frequency histograms of the fourth and the fifth museum showed the highest scores in the range 5-7 (41 per cent and 36 per cent, respectively).
40%
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It is assumed that the average of the ratings in the eight questions gives a measure of “virtual presence” (PM index) for the five museums.
25% 20% 15%
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Figures 1 and 2. Presence index of the 1st and the 2nd virtual museums. 58
DESIDOC Jl. Lib. Inf. Technol., 2008, 28(4)
40%
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Figures 3 and 4. Presence index of the 3rd and the 4th virtual museums.
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Bins Figure 5. Presence index of the 5th virtual museum. Ë
PM1
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The cumulative histograms of all five museums revealed that the scores above average (3) were 90 per cent for fourth and fifth museum, 80 per cent for first museum, 74 per cent for the second museum and 60 per cent for the third museum.
Based on these findings (particularly the high scores of fourth and the fifth museum and the low score of the third museum) it may be argued that the methods employed to enhance the virtual presence in museums four and five are better than those used in museums one to three.
6. CONCLUSION Based on the aforementioned statistical results, it can be concluded that 3-D spaces and real time navigation results in the greater feeling of presence in a virtual interface. In addition to this, some recent web technologies to enhance interaction, such as Macromedia Flash, in combination with embedded sound and/or video add to this feeling of presence significantly. In contrary, the up to now employed DESIDOC Jl. Lib. Inf. Technol., 2008, 28(4)
6- 7
5-7
4-7
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Bins Figure 6. Cumulative frequency histogram.
approach by means of a “thumbnail gallery leads to high resolution image” is no more adequate, as regards feeling present in a virtual museum environment. Even if photographs of the presented artifacts are used, the feeling is the same: a web-based “virtual gallery” in a “normal” web-based presentation style. However, in utilizing broadly accepted technologies, such as Macromedia Flash, implemented directly in the visitor’s browser, enhancing thus the userenvironment interaction, enriched also with sound and/or video, provides a low cost solution with good acceptance with regards to presence in a virtual environment, as the statistics of this study unveiled. This result has its own value per se, as most of the contemporary collections of cultural heritage objects are presented by means of “virtual galleries”. In contrast, there is concern whether employing technologies such as VR or AR approaches could severely impact usability and hinder virtual visitors in completing efficiently tasks in the interface 17 . This study does not raise such an issue; however 59
6. Webster’s II: New Riverside University Dictionary. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984.
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Mean PM
6 5 4 3 2 1 1
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Museum Figure 7. Summary statistics (mean and standard deviation) for the five histograms.
it was not designed to assess usability issues. So, this question, namely if high-end technologies, such as AR/VR technologies impact usability, remains open and is proposed for further research. As a closing remark, a broader look at the results of this study shows that virtual visitors feel present in a virtual environment if they can dynamically interact with the environment, which implies natural multimodal (tactile, visual and aural) interaction and exploratively navigate through it, feeling thus as being there, as far as it can be possible in a technology facilitated environment, such as a virtual museum interface.
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7. Stanney, K.M.; Salvendy, G.; Deisigner, J.; DiZio, P.; Ellis, S.; Ellison, E.; Fogleman, G.; Gallimore, J.; Hettinger, L.; Kennedy, R.; Lackner, J.; Lawson, B.; Maida, J.; Mead, A.; Mon-Williams, M.; Newman, D.; Piantanida, T.; Reeves, L.; Riedel, O.; Singer, M.; Stoffregen, T.; Wann, J.; Welch, R.; Wilson, J. & Witmer, B. After effects and sense of presence in virtual environments: Formulation of a research and development agenda. Report sponsored by the Life Sciences Division at NASA Headquarters. International Journal of HumanComputer Interaction , 1998, 10(2), 135-87. 8. Lombard, M. & Ditton, T. At the heart of it all: The concept of presence. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 1997, 3(2), 1-45. http:/ /www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol3/issue2/lombard.html 9. Freeman, J.; Avons, S. E.; Pearson, D. E. & Ijsselsteijn, W. A. Effects of sensory information and prior experience on direct subjective ratings of presence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments , 1999, 8, 1-13. 10. Slater, M. Measuring presence: A response to the Witmer and Singer Presence Questionnaire. Presence, 1999, 8(5), 560-565. 11. Mania, K. & Chalmers, A. The effects of levels of immersion on memory and presence in virtual environments: A reality centered approach. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 2001, 4, 247-264.
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16. Slater, M.; Steed, A.; McCarthy, J. & Maringelli, F. The influence of body movement on subjective presence in virtual environments. Human Factors, 1998, 40(3), 469-477.
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About the Authors Stella Sylaiou is pursuing PhD at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. She holds a BA degree in Archaeology and a MSc in Archaeological Computing, specialising in Virtual Reality in Archaeology. Her areas of interest include Cultural Informatics, Human-Computer Interaction, etc.
Dr Ioannis Stavropoulos is a Chemical Engineer from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. His main interests are multivariate statistical process control and computer modeling of physicochemical processes. He is currently an affiliated researcher at the Aerosol and Particle Technology Laboratory of CERTH/CPERI, Greece.
Dr Athanasis Karoulis has a BSc in Mathematics, an MSc in Information Systems, an MSc in Education, and a PhD in Informatics. He is currently active as an instructor in educational technologies for secondary education, as a multimedia and web project manager, and as a researcher in the domains of HCI and of Distance Learning, regarding the application of new technologies at the Department of Informatics at Aristotle University. His scientific interests include Human-Computer Interaction, Multimedia and Web design, Educational Technologies and Distance Learning. Prof. Petros Patias is a Professor at the Department of Rural and Surveying Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. His main interests are Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Visualisation, and Cultural Informatics.
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